Exercise better than pills?

U-T San Diego

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A really big meta-analysis that reviewed the results of 305 previous clinical trials of drugs for coronary heart disease (more than 339,000 patients total) and other ailments found that exercise might work just as well – or better – than prescribed medications.

The Harvard Medical School study reported that carefully monitored physical exercise was just as effective as drugs for treating people with or recovering from coronary heart disease or preventing diabetes. For stroke, exercise was more effective. For heart failure, drugs tended to work better.

The scientists emphasized that their results do not mean people should stop taking their medications, especially without consulting their doctors, but they do suggest that exercise might play a more significant role in preventing, treating and recovering from many diseases.

The bad news: Even “healthy” Americans don’t get enough exercise. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently estimated almost 80 percent of adults do not get the recommended amount of physical activity each week – 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise and 15 minutes of really working up a good, heart-pounding sweat.

Observation

“Jogging is very beneficial. It’s good for your legs and your feet. It’s also very good for the ground. If makes it feel needed.”

–“Peanuts” creator Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000)

Number cruncher

A single serving of nachos with cheese, beans, ground beef and peppers (255 grams or 6-8 nachos) contains 569 calories, 276 from fat. It has 30.7 grams of total fat or 47 percent of the recommended total fat intake for a 2,000-calorie daily diet.

On this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus noted in his journal the use of tobacco among New World Indians—the first recorded reference to tobacco. The translation reads: “I found a man alone in a canoe who was going from the island of Santa Maria to Fernandina, and was carrying a little of his bread, water and some dry leaves which must be a thing very much appreciated among them because they had already brought me some of them as a present at San Salvador.” The use of the leaves was made clearer in a subsequent journal entry: “men and women with herbs to smoke, which they are in the habit of doing.”

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Stories for the waiting room

Hearing loss isn’t limited to rock musicians and their fans. An Australian study recently found that among surveyed professional French horn players, aged 40 and younger, between 18 percent and 33 percent showed signs of noise-induced hearing loss.

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Epitaphs

She always said her feet were killing her,

But nobody believed her.

–Tombstone of Margaret Daniels, Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va.

Get me that. Stat!

Americans consume 80 percent of opiate painkillers produced in the world, according to American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.

Body of knowledge

The average life span of a human taste bud is seven to 10 days. By age 60, most people have lost half of their taste buds.

Never say diet

The Major League Eating speed-eating record for ham and potatoes is 6 pounds in 12 minutes, held by Cookie Jarvis. Warning: Most of these records are held by professional eaters; the rest by people who really should find something better to do.